Choosing books for a book club can often be a daunting task.
It is so difficult to anticipate what members in the group will like or
appreciate. I myself often don’t like the choices, but I am always glad to
expand my own reading choices.
This month I selected Paul Harding’s Tinkers. The book won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize, so I thought if
nothing else at least we could appreciate reading a quality novel. Book group
meets this coming Tuesday, and I have already heard grumbles that it is too
hard a subject, too meandering, too esoteric for most readers. Even my friend
who has read every single book in the nearly four years our group has been
meeting has been challenged to finish it. One of the couples in the group could
not get past the first page – his father recently having succumbed to a similar
death as the main character.
I admit it was a difficult book to start. I started and
stopped a few times over the last month, until last week I knew I needed to get
serious and get it read, so I began again. This time the book flowed for me. I
found myself captivated, enthralled, engrossed by so many of the passages that
I actually had to get sticky notes and mark the pages I found truly beautiful.
Tinkers is the
story of George Washington Crosby and his descent to death to cancer. The story
of his life is intertwined with that of his father, who left the family when
George was a young boy, rather than be institutionalized by George’s mother
because of his epileptic fits. George became obsessed with clock repair later
in life, and the mechanisms and clockworks are woven throughout the story.
Howard, George’s father, had a parallel life with his son, and their stories
show the fabric of life and how deep inside, all of us are made of the same
stuff as nature throughout the history of the world. Inside the red blood of
our bodies lies the rust left behind from Roman armor, and our bones contain
the same materials as the stars in the heavens. It is the story of life; of consciousness, of moments in life that can stay with us always, of living and of dying, and how none of us can escape no matter how we live our lives; deep inside we are all one in the same. The prose in this book completely left me
breathless on several occasions.
“..and my father’s fading was because he realized this: My
goodness, I am made from planets and wood, diamonds and orange peels, now and
then, here and there; the iron in my blood was once the blade of a Roman plow;
peel back my scalp and you will see my cranium covered in scrimshaw carved by
an ancient sailor who never suspected he was whittling at my skull – no, my
blood is a Roman plow, my bones are being etched by men with names that mean
sea wrestler and ocean rider, and the pictures they are making are pictures of
northern stars at different seasons…” p. 136
This is an incredible book. Yes, it is a challenge to read,
and the timeline jumps so much it is hard to keep track of who is speaking or
when. I read that Harding printed his manuscript, laid it all out, then cut it
up and formed it into what it is today by pasting the bits together. Whether or not this is true, I do not know. However, I can believe it is.
Despite the challenges, I found this book to be poetic genius. Thank you Paul
Harding.
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